Advantage and Disadvantage of Rooting Android Devices

Android Rooting

Android rooting is like unleashing the power that is within your device. Rooting your Android device removes its limitations, not actually to be limitless, but to be free from any restrictions to its entire system. Carriers and manufacturers normally prevent this, because you could do things like deleting essential files with which would cause problems. Unfortunately, these policies limit what you can do with your phone. There are some compelling reasons why you should consider rooting your device now.

Ten Advantages of Rooting Your Device

1. Free Tethering - Imagine sharing your phone's fast 4G connection with your tablet. You already pay for your mobile data plan, why should you have to pay more to share your 3G or 4g connection with your other devices? Although some carriers allow this for free others are not. Just download a free tethering app, and in seconds you'll be able to share your phones data connection with your tablet, laptop, or other devices. Though you don't need to root your device to run tethering apps, some of the best tethering apps work only on rooted devices.2. Delete Carrier Bloatware - Most carriers load your phone with apps you'll probably never use. They consume precious space and in some cases consume memory and other resources. After rooting your phone, it's easy to delete all of the carrier-in stalled apps you don't want. Although there are several ways to do this, I recommend you to download Titanium Backup. This app allows you to uninstall any app with a single click.3. Eliminate Banner Ads - Apps like Adfree remove most advertisements which appear in your browser and other apps. This is done using a blacklist which blocks ads before they can even download. Now you can play Angry Birds ad-free. This is a really big deal because it means you can get one of the biggest benefits of paid apps for free.4. Backup Everything on Your Phone - Apps like Titanium Backup, allow you to automatically backup everything on your device - including protected apps, system apps and data on your SD card. If you purchase a Titanium Backup Pro Key licensed, you can upload your backps to your free Dropbox account. I can give you a key for free here. This makes it easy to restore a backup from the cloud if your device is ever lost, or stolen.5. Make Your Phone Faster - Apps like SetCPU allow you to overclock the speed of your processor to make your phone run faster.6. Increase Custom ROMs - Custom ROMs and apps like SetCPU increase the battery life of your phone. In some cases the difference is significant.7. Install Custom ROMs – After you root your phone, you can install custom ROMs which give your phone better battery life, faster performance, custom themes and additional features like special audio processing. Cynanogenmod is the most popular aftermarket firmware.8. Run Any App You Like – Once you root your phone, you’ll be able to install any app you like. This includes apps that have been blocked by your carrier, or banned by Google.9. Run Apps on Your SD Card – By installing and running apps on your SD Card, you free up internal memory.10. Perform Other UI Tweaks – Want to remove the search box from your home screen and replace it with a search button? No problem. What about adding back a menu button to the main screen of your Android 4.0 phone. Again, no problem. Check Google to learn more about these and many others UI tweaks.

The Disadvantages of Rooting

Although rooting your phone isn’t as dangerous as most people think, it’s not for everyone. Here are some risks you should be aware of before you root your phone.

1. Rooting Isn't for everyone. Although there a one-touch rooting solutions, I wouldn't say rooting is easy yet. Some phones are easier to root than others. Make sure to do some serious research to find if others with your model are having good results when they try to root them.

2. Overclocking your phone too much could cause it to overheat. If you overclock your phone too much you could cause it to overheat and could even damage its processor.

3. Rooting your phone could prevent you from automatically receiving OTA OS software updates from your carrier. This was a problem for me when Verizon release the Android 4.0.4 update for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. There is a way around this, but it’s not easy.

4. In most cases you’ll have to wipe out your phone when you root it, so make sure to copy your media off of your phone. It’s also a good idea to make screen shots of all of your home screens and app page, so you can quickly restore your device to the same look and feel you had before.

5. You may receive an error when attempting to play a rented movie on a rooted device.

6. And last, but not least, the use of tethering software may violate your carrier’s Terms of Service.